


here’s a lesson on expectations: don’t. just don’t.

by wartransmission



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Second person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8022565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wartransmission/pseuds/wartransmission
Summary: Steve had his expectations when he first got into a relationship with Tony Stark.It figures that Tony would be the type to deviate from those expectations, possibly just for the sake of being contrary.





	here’s a lesson on expectations: don’t. just don’t.

**Author's Note:**

> oh god this is self-indulgent fluff r.i.p. to quality writing lmao. I needed a reason to talk about Tony Stark (and BOY did I satisfy that need with this one) and so, this happened. They’re both probably OOC, even more so considering the image I had in mind while writing this is MCU, but I’m making it my excuse that it’s been a couple of years of being together for them and a good relationship can help resolve a lot of (honestly solvable) issues in the films. idk honestly I just wanted Steve to wax poetic about Tony’s beautiful soul (HAHAHA)
> 
> Hope you guys like it at least a little bit!!

You don’t know what you expected when you got into this relationship with Tony.

Okay, _that_ is a big fat lie. You had your expectations, as most people do when getting into anything, and you’d expected _something_. You’d expected a little more of the Tony Stark package: explosive, abrasive, and shameless. You don’t know what it says about _you_ that you expected all of that and wanted it anyway, but.

That’s not exactly what you got, so the point is kind of moot.

Tony Stark is certainly explosive, but not entirely in the way you’d expected him to be. He’s explosive the way stars are: deconstructing and reconstructing himself to always, always make room for something new. (At least, that’s what you’d understood from his long ramble on the galaxy, its stars, and its many other (mildly terrifying) wonders.) He learns by practice, learns with touch, and you find this out when you take him to bed and he comes apart under your hands, only to come back up again to bring you to your knees, breathless and shaken to the core.

He’s explosive, but not the kind of explosive that you _deal_ with as you do _fall in love_ with. And you’re a soldier to your core, even if you were never the perfect kind; you’ve always thrived on the adrenaline of free-falling and surviving danger. You can’t pretend that Tony isn’t dangerous, because he is. With a mind like his, running through calculations and mechanics as though they were basic math- he could do anything. He could _be_ anything. That he chose to be a hero anyway, saving lives and doing good despite his other options…you can’t even pretend to comprehend the true _depths_ of his kindness.

He’s explosive, and consequently kind of dangerous, but you can’t really say you’ve never loved danger.

His abrasiveness, on the other hand, is the thing that makes him an acquired taste. It ensures that only the strongest of hearts (or the most enduring of traitors, unfortunately) can stay close and keep close, and it’s enough of a protective measure that being let in just feels-

Like a privilege. Like you’ve not been expecting a gift because it’s not even close to your birthday but he just hands it to you, the gift box almost half your size, and he calls it a “random act of kindness”. Though you suppose he’d never call his opening up a random act of kindness as he would just call it a burden, because that’s just what it _is_ for him. And you know how that feels; you’re hardly the best case for a well-adjusted person with the number of years you’ve spent in the ice, and you’ve got a lot of weight on your shoulders from being Captain America that you’re not sure you even know how to put down.

You’re a mess, and so is he. You guess that’s just the thing to make this relationship easier, where sleepless nights are par for the course and unscheduled breakdowns are things you can both pretend you know how to deal with.

You’ve also spent enough time around Tony to know that his abrasiveness is a habit reinforced from handling the cards life has dealt him. You can’t go around life being the owner of a Fortune 500 company _and_ a celebrity with a kind of sensitivity reserved for people outside of the spotlight. Tony is never _just_ Tony. He’s Tony Stark, owner of Stark Industries and Iron Man, and there will always, always be people trying to pull him down for his successes. You hate that it’s a thing that he has to do at all, but you know better than to decry him for his coping methods when yours have never been as healthy.

But it’s the shamelessness you’d expected from him that really gets to you. For all his smart-ass remarks and lewd commentary, when it comes to genuine compliments about anything besides his genius, he gets sincerely _confused_. The routine often goes as follows whenever you offer him a simple compliment (something like: “you’re amazing, Tony” or “you’ve got beautiful eyes”):

  1. He will blink twice, face going blank in that way it often does whenever he’s trying to process something.
  2. He’ll do that little twitch- the one where he blinks and his head jerks back for a microsecond- before regarding you with an odd look.
  3. Once he figures you’re sincere with your words, he’ll smile. Awkwardly. Like he’s forcing himself to, even though he looks like he wants to do anything else but smile.
  4. He’ll offer a joke, a vulgar comment, a dismissive wave of his hand, or an over-the-top gesture of appreciation at the simple comment just to make it look like he _knows_ that he’s that amazing/beautiful/etc.



You don’t even go out of your way to extol his virtues- which are far and few in between, seeing as he likes to stick to the grey areas of morality- but for every rare moment you say something kind, it’s always like he’s befuddled by it. Like he owes you something for saying it, like you’d never say anything as nice if you didn’t need something from him in return.

It breaks your heart just thinking about it, and kind of makes you want to go back in time just to get a smack in on Howard’s head. God knows a good shake might actually make the man see sense when it came to caring for his own son.

“Brooding again, old man? Doesn’t that get tiring?” a familiar voice says, breaking right into your thoughts.

“I’ll have you know that I’ve yet to lose any of my youthful looks, so the old-man comment is uncalled for,” you say, looking up with a smile when Tony clicks his tongue, his gaze turned away from you as he shrinks down all of his holographic projects into little balls of light. “And I’m not the one with the grey hair,” you add belatedly.

“The cheek on you, Rogers,” Tony tuts, the firmness of his voice belying his amusement at your riposte, “it’s unbecoming. What would the people say?”

“I’ve been reliably informed that anything on me is becoming so long as I’m wearing it,” you retort, closing and setting aside the sketchbook you’d had open on your lap in favor of getting up from the couch and heading towards him. He smiles, bright-eyed and amused as you take up the space behind him to envelop him in the warmth of your arms. Settling your chin on the curve of his shoulder, you say, “I seem to remember you being one of the people to say that, and I know you’re not the type to offer baseless compliments.”

“Caught me,” Tony says as though it were a confession, before turning around and slipping his arms up to wrap them around your shoulders. The smile on his face is the kind of tired that speaks of satisfaction than weariness, and you can’t deny your body’s urge to kiss a bigger smile onto his lips. As though expecting it, the smile on Tony’s face widens, and you chuckle.

“Love you,” you say, words murmured in a breath into his mouth.                                                                          

“Love you too, Captain Sassypants,” he murmurs right back, smile so unbelievably beautiful on his face while he presses another kiss to the corner of your lips.

“Still not over how amazing you are, either,” you say, seemingly out of nowhere that Tony can’t help from repeating the motions you’d just listed out to yourself earlier. You smile, because you saw that reaction coming from a mile away. “Just wanted to make sure you know that,” you say.

“I thought we wanted to keep my ego in check?” he asks, leaning back a bit to look at you closely. “You complimenting me isn’t gonna help with that. Hell, it’ll make me worse. You give me an inch and I’ll take a couple of light-years.”

“I’m sure we can manage it if it’s just the little things,” you assure him, going for an innocent look as you add, “like how beautiful your eyes are.”

His lips thin into a firm line and a few wrinkles make their appearance on his forehead as he furrows his eyebrows in confusion. He says, “Okay, do you need something from me? Because you’re being suspiciously sweet today. You don’t need to do that. I know you’re a sweet guy in general, but this is reaching diabetes-inducing levels of sweet. I can practically hear the klaxons sounding in my head.”

You say, a teasing smile playing on your lips, “Does it have to be suspicious when I just want to treat my fella right?”

“Oh no, don’t you pull that shit on me, Brooklyn,” Tony warns, a quirk of a smile belying his unease as he pokes a finger into your chest. “You’re being sneaky about something, I can feel it. Just spill before I make Fry spill for you.”

“Nothin’ to spill other than how much I appreciate you,” you say, lips pressing against Tony’s temple in a drawn-out kiss. “Maybe if I tell you all the things I like about you over and over again, you’ll actually believe me and start liking those parts of you too.”

Tony hums his doubt at those words. “Conditioning, huh,” he says, leaning forward to rest his forehead against your shoulder. You raise your head to nuzzle a nose into his hair, breathing in the slow-growing smell of sweat and musk that’s collected from Tony’s version of working out and actual working. “Maybe,” he says, word coming out in a huff when you press a kiss to the top of his head. “I still hate that you’re so goddamn tall, though,” he grumbles under his breath and into your chest.

“The sentiment isn’t shared, sorry,” you say unapologetically, smiling when Tony rears back to squint at you. “I like how you fit in my arms like this. It’s nice.”

“Is it overcompensation, or have you actually always been a caveman under that American sweetheart façade?” he asks. You quirk an eyebrow at the incomprehensible question and Tony rolls his eyes, before pinching you right in the bicep.

You stare at him with pursed lips, not quite hurt as you are bewildered at the action. “Ow?”

“Under all that muscle, you are actually a five-year old in need of a teddy bear,” he says, placing both of his hands palm-flat onto your chest before pushing away from you. “Touch-starved isn’t as appealing as soap operas make it look, Captain.”

“I dunno about that,” you say, not as offended after months of learning to interpret around Tony’s words. You watch him walk back to the center of his workshop, hands flying up to bring back the balls of light he’d dismissed earlier. You say, deliberately distracting him from his work, “You make it look adorable.”

“We have talked about this,” he says while turning to look at you, nose wrinkling in annoyance as he waves his hands palm-open in your direction, “I am a grown-ass man. I am _handsome_ , if anything. Adorable is reserved for toddlers, small animals, and people to whom any other positive adjectives regarding looks do not apply. Also, I am only mildly touch-starved. It’s not my fault my dad didn’t hug me enough as a kid.”

You raise an eyebrow at the spillage of deeply private information in the midst of his rebuttal. Choosing to save _that_ conversation for later, you say, “Like I said: adorable.”

He cocks his head to one side as though in question, before he lets out a laugh in understanding with his head tossed back and a hand pressed to the center of his chest. He says in between breaths, “ _Oh_ , you are a sassy one.” He goes back to his work, lips pursing as he mutters under his breath, “I can’t believe people actually think you don’t have a sense of humor.”

“Gotta keep the façade up lest people think I can actually divert from their image of Captain America,” you say. He laughs again and you smile, because that’s a sound and a view that you’ll never get tired of. “Also,” because you can’t just let this go, “if you think insulting me is gonna tempt me into letting go of you, I might actually have to question your so-called genius.”

“If you actually think I’d ever give you a chance to break up with me, then _you_ ’ _ll_ have to rethink your IQ level, Cap,” Tony shoots back, one eyebrow raised as he looks up from his holographic blueprint to look at you. “I am a _genius_. Making you break up with me is the stupidest thing a human being could ever choose to do.”

You smile, wide and bright and probably looking like an idiot, which Tony instantly confirms with, “You look like an idiot when you smile like that.”

“You love it when I smile like this,” you retort as you come closer, grin widening when he doesn’t move to avoid you. You cup his cheeks in your palms once you get close enough, pressing a brief but sweet kiss to his lips before pulling away to say, “You like knowing you make me this happy.”

“If anyone ever calls me arrogant again, I will point them at you and make them rethink their case,” he says, smile threatening to break through his serious expression as he rests his own hands over yours.

“If you ever call me touch-starved again, I’ll remind you of who resembles an octopus whenever we sleep together,” you retort, smiling openly when Tony snorts a laugh in his amusement at you.

“Oh, I’m not denying that I am,” he says. He pries your hands away from his cheeks before lowering them to rest on his waist, and you acquiesce to the unspoken request. You wrap your arms around his waist and tug him close, letting your warmth seep into his skin as he continues with, “It’s why we’re perfect for each other.”

You raise an eyebrow in response. “Because we’re both touch-starved?”

“Because we’re both touch-starved, messed up, and kind of lonely,” he says. The honesty hits you right in the chest, starting off like a cold spear against your heart before turning into slow-blooming warmth inside your lungs. He makes it a habit to be honest to the point of it cutting, you’re aware, but his honesty is usually reserved for his opinion on things outside of himself. That he could say this to you, as painful and sad it may sound to anyone else, is everything. It’s more than enough to let you know that this- what you have- _matters._

“I have other reasons though,” you say, and he quirks an eyebrow in what you know is curiosity. You answer the unspoken question, “I love you. Beyond giving me a literal home, you made me feel less lost in the future. It’s not even because you’re the first to try, because there are other people out there who’ve helped me. You make me feel like I belong here, that there’s still some purpose to my being here.”

He smiles, amused. “I happen to be the special cookie to get to you, then.”

“You were born special,” you say, grin softening into a smile as you rest your forehead against his. Brown eyes look up at you and into you, the golden flecks in his irises clearer in this proximity as you murmur, “You’re _you_ , Tony. It would have been you regardless of anyone else’s attempts.”

He shakes his head, and you stop him with a nudge of your forehead against his. “Trust me,” you say.

 _Trust me to be sincere with you,_ you don’t say. _Trust me to love you for all the right reasons, and never for the reasons that couldn’t make the others before me stay._ So much of it remains unspoken, but he seems to understand when he looks up into your eyes and smiles, soft and warm and none of that picture-perfect tabloid-cover Tony Stark you’re painfully familiar with.

“Yeah, okay,” he says.

You smile back, letting your eyes fall shut as he slides his own hands up to play with your hair.

“Okay.”


End file.
